


Somewhere

by orphan_account



Category: Alice In Wonderland - Carroll, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Genre: Challenge Response, Community: femslash_today, Crossover, F/F, Femslash, Ficlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-18
Updated: 2009-07-18
Packaged: 2017-10-03 13:58:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorothy is going home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Somewhere

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Femslash-Today's 'Summer Lightning' Porn Battle (but is not actually very porny). Slightly wrong on the timeline, but it kind of had to be.

The sea stretches out immense and wild into the horizon, but the cross-atlantic cruiser cuts through it steady as a coach on a smooth highway. Miss Liddell cuts a lovely figure on the upper deck, corsetted and coiffed to fashion-plate perfection.

'How marvellous,' Dorothy Gale mutters, looking up. She might as well be looking up at the stars. She clutches her blanket tighter around her. It's already becoming chilly; Miss Liddell wraps her shawl around her white shoulders.

-

There's a buzz in the second class. A high society dame has come to catch their rats and rub their backs. There's laughter, but greed as well. Dorothy guesses there'll be a lot of singing, now, and a lot of sob stories, and colicky babies brought out to be kissed and adored. Any old tricks to get some of the kind lady's attentions. Dorothy, being well enough stationed with her secret stash of bread and dried fruit, escapes all this. It'll only be a few more days and she'll be at her uncle's again. She's not like the others, with nothing to look forward to but what they can make on the streets of New York.

London, to put it bluntly, was a bust. She was a fool to go there for employment, even when invited. New York or London, it made no difference – housemaids aren't safe anywhere. She's going back to Kansas.

She sits outside in the chill, and begins to sing to herself, a little ditty about dreams and rainbows. She stops when she realizes what a silly song it is. She's not a child any longer, and she was never quite right in the head when she was.

'Why did you stop?'

Miss Liddell's eyes match her lovely clothes. The young mother behind her flashes Dorothy an ugly glare.

-

The upper decks are like nothing Dorothy has seen since she was a little girl, and even then she could only imagine this splendour: green arches of elaborate decorative motifs reaching to the ceiling, canvases and paintings lining the walls, the floor covered in red carpeting.

'I will lend you some of my clothes,' says Miss Liddell. 'You mustn't present yourself to the band in rags if you wish for them to employ you.'

-

'Why didn't you sing the one about the world beyond the rainbow?' asked Miss Liddell, her pretty mouth in a pout. They are sitting in her brocaded room amongst splendid, expensive waste of china dogs and lace.

'It doesn't matter, does it?' asked Dorothy, drunk with elation. 'It worked, didn't it?'

Miss Liddell edges closer on the loveseat, lays her head down on an embroidered pillow. 'Then would you sing it for me?'

Dorothy does.

Alice's eyes flutter closed, her breathing becomes faster. When Dorothy stops, her eyes open, luminous. She reminds Dorothy of Ozma, a little girl bedecked in jewels. Her lips part.

-

'We must be quiet,' Alice whispers. 'My maid -'

'Shh, then,' Dorothy whispers back, and shoves a fist in her mouth to stop an audible gasp. The room is dark, but there are spots of light dancing under her closed eyelids.

-

Such things are bodies, such gateways. How could an electric shock change one's mind? How can this forbidden nearness so perfectly answer the need for love?

-

'You've been there, haven't you?' Miss Liddell says in the morning, staring into the mirror, something sad and horrible in her small voice.

Not knowing whether she means a fantasy world that is real, that exists just within an arm's reach, or a state of delusional madness, Dorothy nods.

She doesn't know which it was, either.

Boldly, she goes up to Miss Liddell and kisses her, shoves her tongue into her mouth. Alice's fingers twist in the hair at the back of her neck.

_This will be it,_ Dorothy thinks. _I'll go away, with the band maybe, and she'll go back to her life, and that's a lot better than what we'd have to go through if we didn't. Electric shocks don't even begin to cover it._

'Thank you,' Dorothy says as they part. She takes up her blanket and a jacket, the pockets of which she'd previously filled with cookies and trinkets, and walks out.

A few days more, and she'll be home.


End file.
